Consulting Journal: Style - How consultants dress

Style: How consultants dress

by David Blakey

The days of the white shirt and the sober tie may be over, but there are still some expectations of how consultants should dress.

[Monday 27 August 2001]

When you turn up at your clients you should be well turned out. This does not necessarily mean that your clothing is expensive and that you have a conservative hair style. It does mean that you present an image that is professional.

Be consistent

The most important point for consultants is that their clothing and accessories should not be a negative distraction for their clients. You can usually achieve this by being consistent. If you are male and wear bow-ties, then always wear bow-ties. Do not surprise your clients by arriving with a ‘normal’ tie. There is nothing wrong with wearing bow-ties or black suits or any other style or affectation you choose, but you must stick with the style that you have chosen.

This advice may surprise you. Many people giving guidance on dress say that male consultants should avoid rings, bracelets, moustaches, tattoos, and so on. They saw that female consultants should avoid trousers, bright colours, sleeveless dresses, tattoos, and so on. I don't say that. What I say is: if you're going to have any of these things, then have them all the time. Let your clients get used to your individual style by keeping it as your only individual style. A male consultant should not meet a client on Monday wearing a bracelet and not wear it on Tuesday and then wear it again on Wednesday. A female consultant should not usually wear dark suits and suddenly arrive one day in a yellow sleeveless dress.

If you choose to change your style, then make the change and stick with your new style. If you must surprise your clients, then do it once and for all.

For some reason, female consultants can have two styles. I do not quite know why this is, but a female consultant can swap between two different styles provided that it is only between two and no more than two distinctive styles and provided that the two styles are alternated: a suit on one day, a dress on the next, and then back to a suit, and so on.

Be low-key

Being low-key does not mean being boring or being totally like all your colleagues. It means that, although you may have your own styles, you should not have too many styles. You can make bow-ties your style or laced-up boots or ear-rings or coloured socks, but don't combine them. There is a difference between looking like an individual and looking like an eccentric.

As a consultant, you need to be perceived as someone who thinks beyond the current paradigms and who has their own opinions. You should not be seen as someone who is out of touch or deliberately and perversely different.

So a male consultant may have bow-ties and possibly an ear-ring, but coloured socks as well would be a little too much. A female consultant may have large pendant ear-rings and possibly boots, but rings on every finger would be too much.

Look affluent

Don't be cheap when buying clothes. Suits and jackets should be natural fibres. Whether the fabric is wool or cotton or linen or mohair or silk, it should be 100% of one or more of these. The same applies to shirts and ties. Remember that too much silk is an affectation - see above - so you should go for a mix: wool suit, cotton shirt, silk tie.

For men, shoes are very important. They must be leather. They should be a good brand. It doesn't matter if they're slip-ons or lace-ups or whether they have metallic decorations or tassels or flaps. But they must have proper soles. I am always surprised that consultants will spend money on good suits and then ruin the effect with shoes that have thick rubber or composition soles.

Also for men, it is important that real management consultants do not look like contractors. Personally, I always wear white shirts with french cuffs. I don't care if my colleagues wear pastel mauve shirts with white collars. But

Don't wear shirts with a solid dark colour, especially blue or green. This makes you look like a workman who has replaced his overalls with a suit for the day.
Don't wear short-sleeved shirts. You will look like a foreman on a building site. Don't even do it if your client is a foreman on a building site.
Don't wear cufflinks with single cuff shirts. Single cuff shirts were designed for buttons. Cufflinks with them make you look like a used car dealer.

All of these move you down-market.

Don't dress down

You should strike people as being a consultant - a skilled professional manager - not a contract project manager from a ‘body shop’. Take care that you look the part.

Resist any temptation to ‘dress down’ to the style of your clients. Avoid the fad of ‘casual Friday’. If consultants wear casual clothes on Friday because a client does, it shows that the consultants accept fads unthinkingly and that they cannot hold to their own styles, despite pressures to fit in. Together, these suggest indecision, dependence and weakness. Your image should be of a decisive, independent and powerful person.

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